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6/24/12

Hey Folks! This very weekend is Pride weekend here in the Twin Cities! While 2dc will not be there, Little Heart will be for sale at the [MN]Love booth/table. So please, check it out, stop by, talk up their Creative Director Simon.

In other news, the Arthur Turnkey team just turned in their web trailer, which you can see below!

6/12/12

I know it's gotten a little quiet here on the 2DC blog, which doesn't been mean we've just been twiddling our thumbs -- we've been very-very busy. AND very-very behind. Sorry friends.

This weekend is the first ever Chicago Alternative Komix Expo, or CAKE for short. There is a killer line-up of alt and small press cartoonists and the small pressers and distro's that represent them taking part in the great weekend long Chi-cag migration. The official (and gorgeous!) CAKE banner was illustrated and designed by Laura Park.

From their event page:

The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo [CAKE] is a free, weekend-long celebration of independent comics taking place June 16th and 17th, inspired by Chicago’s rich legacy as home to many of underground and alternative comics’ most talented artists– past, present and future. Featuring comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more, CAKE is dedicated to fostering community and dialogue amongst independent artists, small presses, publishers and readers.

Yes. So. If you happen to be looking for us, we will be at table 50 with the beautiful banner above at our table illustrated and designed by Vincent Stall. Vincent will be at the table right next to us alongside Anna Bongiovanni, another 2dc regular.

At our crowded little table you will find myself (raighne here), Justin Skarhus, Meghan Hogan, Nicholas Breutzman, and Eric Schuster. At the show we will have 4 new (and new-ish at nary a month old) books debut.

cover by Saman Bemel-Benrud

First up, we got High-Score, which shares titles with Rusel DeMaria's book of the same name because it was created as a thank you gift to some of his kickstarter backers. If you have any interest in video game history, I would very seriously recommend you seek out his book which is coming back into print this fall in an expanded 3rd edition. More info on his blog is forthcoming.

You might've seen and picked up Prizon Food Part 2 at our comic release party with Joe Gillette, perhaps better known as Party Food, and Eric Schuster in the last month or so, but if not... Well, it's making it's broader splash this weekend at CAKE! Holding down the pimpatude of said title will be Eric Schuster himself. He will also have the limited edition Party Food Playing Cards. And if you are a PF virgin, for 20 bones you can get parts 1-2 + the card set, which saves yah -- lets see, carry the 1, 5-6-7 SEVEN dollars! Whadda-deal!!

In a new annual auto-bio serial, Meghan Hogan will see Startled Maggie number 1 debut at the show. This comic is at the printer (La Mano!!) right now. It's a gorgeous little looker, 4 color cover, 1 color interior. Neat fact time: the insides of the book were all drawn in pencil and to keep that look intact La Mano used the same dark grey ink that was used to simulate pencil lines as they did for the Kim Deitch Files! Pretty rad!!

Lastly, we'll have Little Heart, which will be making it's proper stateside premiere this (yes!) weekend.
If you somehow have not heard a peep about this book, please check out the CAKE debut page. AND to all backers and contributing artists, etc -- my sincere apologies on getting these mailed off to you. We've hit a little snag on one of the backer thank you gifts -- and I've just been swamped getting ready for this show, to be honest. More on this in a backer update soon here.

TCAF post-script

Speaking of Little Heart, last month saw Justin and I making it to TCAF. It was the first time we had attended the show since 2009, where we quietly announced our plans to start publishing solo (vision) work by creators via Nicholas Breutzman's Yearbooks. And --

You know what? It was really nice being back.

Our trek to Toronto this time round was a bit of a strange one as it saw us cutting through Chicago via Megabus; crashing with our pal Neil Bredeau to catch a flight the following morning, all to save a couple bucks. Thus, some Chicag fotos:

thursday night?

meeting up with Neil (not-pictured)

hosteling it

We had pretty killer placement at the show -- maybe better than we deserved too. We were on a little island near the entrance alongside sexy-small-presser's like Sparkplug (Emily Nilsson), i will destroy you (Tom Neely), Spit & a Half (John Porcellino + Noah Van Sciver), La Mano (Zak Sally), P-Box (Molly Roth). Across from us was Annie Koyama & a swath of Koyama Press mega talents; Maurice Vellekoop, Michael DeForge, Dustin Harbin, Tin Can Forrest, and many others!

no show would be without spotting a few...

future-crocs

At our table we had Ed Choy & Jeremy Sorese who helped us make a big splash with Little Heart. In addition, each of those young mega talents had their own debut books at said show (see Curveball by Sorese and Ed Choy Draws James Joyce).

Big ups to all the smart, wonderful TCAF organizers, volunteers, moderators -- through them we had traffic directed at our table due to our placement and we were made part of 2 panels(!). And we just had great effing time hanging out! And an obvious thank you to Christopher Butcher for running the best damn comics festival we have ever seen or been too!!

photo by Dre Grigoropol

Pictured above (by Dre): Jose Villarubia as moderator alongside panelists; Maurice Vellekoop, myself, Jeremy Sorese, Ed Choy, Lucy Knisley, Emily Carroll. For several of us, this was our first panel and we were very nervous. Ed was smart and had some liquid courage on hand to stem those nerves.

Other News:

Pornhounds #1 is back in print -- apologies for any tardiness on outgoing orders!

The shop, upcoming releases, and blog at large have been updated by Meghan Hogan and Justin Skarhus -- thanks you two! Both are far easier to navigate now. So take a look and thanks for allowing me to totally burn your eyes out with this loooong ass post!